Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝Feb 21

Some real talk about the archive.today scandal: the reason why people used the site wasn't because it archived things, it was because it created links to articles that evaded paywalls. If people want to replace it, they need alternate functionality for evading paywalls, not for archiving.

1 / a few

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/wikipedia-bans-archive-today-after-site-executed-ddos-and-altered-web-captures/

Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, starts removing 695,000 archive links

If DDoSing a blog wasn't bad enough, archive site also tampered with web snapshots.

Ars Technica
Show threadRich Puchalsky ⩜⃝
If you wanted actual long-term archiving, it would be a very bad decision to do that through a site that no one knows who runs. On the other hand, if what you're looking for is basically piracy, then of course no one knows who runs the site (which is why US cops have tried to find out) and of course the site runner(s) whoever they are will be very touchy about people who seem to be doxxing them.
Feb 21 at 11:53amWeb
Show threadRich Puchalsky ⩜⃝Feb 21

It's understandable why the site presents itself as having an archiving function. That sounds a lot better, since it piggybacks off of the Internet Archive and similar sites that to some extent have been grandfathered in. But it never really was an archive.

What is the difference between a library/archive and a piracy operation? It's whether agencies like the FBI have been motivated by industry, which they serve, to arrest you. That's the defining difference.

Show threadRich Puchalsky ⩜⃝Feb 21

This social definition controls how the people running the institution act. Every librarian could become a pirate, every pirate could become a librarian. What changes is whether people are looking to arrest them.

/fin